GoPro Hero3

I have been doing research into picking up a GoPro for some time now. As recently as before I left for Germany I was considering purchasing one as they were on sale. Something told me to wait, my gut said if they are dropping the price this much there must be something new right around the corner.

Well, I was right, last night GoPro announced the Hero3 which looks to me to be a kick as camera that will not just be useful for action sports anymore.

There are three new model prices at $199, $299 and $399. You can get the tech specs on GoPro’s site right here but I want to talk about the practical use that I may have for purchasing. I am thinking that the $399 version may be for me. One it comes with a ton of frame rate options including 1080 at 60FPS. That means im full HD you can film at a high frame rate to than get really amazing super slow motion playback. Beyond that the top modle not only offers WIFI built in but comes with a wifi remote that would sell for $79.99 separately for the other models.

At first you may think who needs wifi in a camera like this. I see it being useful in many situations, one being that it connects with an APP on the phone allowing you to not only control the camera but preview its framing. The fact that the camera does not have a way to preview video is made a moot point now with the ability to preview your video via the app. Another great use for the wifi is you place a camera before an event you can turn it off and on without being near the device. I could see using this for concerts and some of my video shoots.

I am thinking I may pick up a few of these units to use for recording the RAWtalk Podcasts to bring you not just audio but now killer video. I also see options for attaching it to microphone stands when I am capturing musicians for that up close and person angle.

All and all this is a smaller, lighter faster camera than anything that GoPro has put out before. The sample footage is truly breath taking though it lacks any lowlight shooting sample video. I would like to see how it will work when I am shooting concerts with the first person camera shooter option.